VIENNA, Austria (AP), Aug 22 _ A man mistook a municipal building in southern Austria for a bank and tried to rob it early Tuesday, police said.

The 34-year-old man thought a municipal building in the southern village of Poggersdorf was a bank because it had an ATM machine in the lobby, said Hermann Klammer, head of the criminal division at Carinthia province's police department.

The man fled the building after a woman he allegedly threatened with an air gun told him she had no money and that he had made a mistake, Klammer said.

"At first, I thought he was making a bad joke,'' Austrian broadcaster ORF quoted the woman, Helga Aichwalder, as saying.

The man, who is from Carinthia but was not identified by name, was arrested shortly after the incident and has admitted the act, Klammer said.

"This is an extremely odd case. I've never come across anything like this,'' Klammer said.